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TaleWeaverAn Adventure in Storytelling

By Andy Havens

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Quick Start

TaleWeaver is a set of cards, suggestions and guidelines to help you create and tell stories. Whether for your own enjoyment, as a group excercize, for children to hear and illustrate, or as a creativity-enhancing activity, TaleWeaver is a fun, easy way to begin your storytelling adventure, or improve your creative skills.

1. Print the TaleWeaver deck pages of the PDF file. I suggest light card stock. If you want to have a “front” design for your cards, print the pattern from the last page. You’ll need to photocopy or print the “front” on each page of four cards before cutting the cards apart.

2. Cut the cards out. If you have a paper cutter, that’s much easier. You can also take the sheets to many copier shops (e.g., Kinkos) and have them cut them very nicely and quickly for about $5.

3. Shuffle the cards.4. Deal until you find an “Eye,” which is a “character” card. There are four suits; Eyes (characters),

Hands (objects/props), Winds (events) and Lands (environments/settings). Four “Jesters” add a touch of chaos. The first “Eye” you come to will be your main character.

5. Deal out one more card after you get your main character. This will be his/her goal. Either to find the person or object, travel to the place or survive/conquer/understand the event.

6. Deal out at least 3 more cards. These stand between your hero and his/her goal. Your story is simply the steps by which your hero interacts with these cards to get to the goal.

7. That’s it! You’ve told a story. A simple (probably short) one, but that’s the basic idea.8. Review Chapters 2 & 3 to get a better feel for the deck and to get ideas for more types of stories.9. Review Chapter 4 for strategies on how to more easily add depth and personality to your stories.10. Review Chapter 5 for ways to play TaleWeaver alone or with others.

Later, read Chapter 1 to get an idea of how/why TaleWeaver came about. Chapter Eggplant contains erroneous details. The short story, “The Middle of Katherine’s Tale,” is about a young girl for whom storytelling eventually plans a very important role.

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Chapter 1. Motive, History and Introduction

Mr. Art Man

For about ten summers during high-school and college, I was the Director of Arts & Crafts at a day camp in suburban Boston. My official title (as given to me by some of the kids) was “Mr. Art Man.” For the last five years of my tenure there, I worked (if you can call it work) exclusively with the youngest groups of children; three year-olds, who were there only half-a-day, up through five year olds, who went home early on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The time I spent with these young children was some of the happiest of my life. Although there are vast, developmental differences between three and five year olds, they all (with almost no exception) have one thing in common – tremendous imaginations.

There are challenges to working with any age group, and having gone from doing crafts with older kids to working with just the youngest, I found that my repertoire of activities did not entirely convert. Pottery was out; many small children just don’t have the hand strength and get frustrated; there went 10% of my curriculum. Most three year olds can’t cut with scissors; that eliminates a good fifth of craft projects, unless you want to spend all your free time cutting up bits of chenille bumps and colored felt ahead of time. That’s not the point of crafts, in my philosophy. Other than planning and getting together materials, kids should do at least 90% of the “stuff.” Otherwise, it’s not crafts but connect-the-dots with fuzz. Not the best way to stimulate young creativity. Many of my other classic projects involved a level of hand-eye coordination not available to most preschoolers. Even gluing together popsicle sticks was a challenge not readily met by many four year olds.

Giant Hamsters

So, I still had just as many classes, but only about a quarter the projects. How to fill in the gap? I decided to increase the frequency of a favorite activity – coloring. Some days with crayons, some with markers, some with chalk. On paper, posterboard, the driveway, etc. Kids, especially young ones, love to color.

What I discovered, though, is that many kids don’t know what to color. If you give them a topic, they’ll go nuts. But just hand them some crayons and paper, and many of them are at a loss. It’s as if their imagination needs a jump-start. Once it gets going, though, watch out – they’ll come up with some crazy, funny, smart stuff beyond your ability to fathom.

I needed kernels for coloring, then. OK. On the sunny days when coloring was scheduled, we went outside and I led the kids on mini-adventures. We would mime riding giant hamsters over the Grand Canyon, climb lemon vines to get to the land of Snack, get stuck in pools of strawberry jam… you get the picture. Fun, physical, non-violent, imaginative romps to give their creativity a quick goose. Which leads to one of the funniest stories of my career as an Art Guy. Skip the indented section below if you want to just get on with the history of TaleWeaver.

Once, on one of our adventures, we were searching for the magic keys that would let us into the Castle of Clouds, where our friend Sparkus, the Ever Tardy Dragon, was trapped in a deep nap. We ran around the camp’s soccer field, looking under fences and around goal-posts and finally “found” the keys under a giant statue of a duck. Please keep in mind that all the props are completely imaginary, and thus invisible and incorporeal. Except for the fences, goal-posts, steps, snack cart, etc. You get it. Anyway…

We found the magic keys between the webbed toes of the giant duck statue. I began to hand them out to the kids, taking them out one-at-a-time from a bag (not really there, remember) under my left arm and passing them to each camper. When I’d finished (or so I thought…), I

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asked, “OK! Does everyone have a magic key?” Expecting a chorus of, “Yes.” Which I got. Except for Doug. Who said, “I didn’t get one.”

OK. So I forgot to hand one to Doug. I was about to take one out from under my arm (since, being non-existent, I had plenty), and hand it to Doug, but he pointed at Adam next to him and said, “He took two.”

I looked at the other boy and asked, “Did you take two keys, Adam?” He nodded, a bit sullenly. “Could you please give one to Doug?” He nodded again, and handed a key (a handful of air) to Doug, who snatched it (nothing) away and held it (his still empty hand) behind his back so that Adam couldn’t grab it (nothing) back.

Observe the power of imagination! Not only had Adam actually pretended to take two keys, but Doug had caught him at it. And when confronted, Adam confessed and returned one! It was as real to them as if I were handing out actual, physical keys. There’s a whole philosophical discussion waiting to happen around whether or not as adults we lose the ability to hold that strongly onto our illusions, but I’ll leave it to you.

You can come back to the main narrative here, if you’d like.

A Beautiful, Unacceptable Canoe

So sunny days were spent outside, running around, boiling off some steam, using up twenty minutes or so of a forty-five minute period, garnering ideas for pictures. But, this being New England, a good quarter of the time it was raining. Or hailing. Or snowing – only once, in late August, and it didn’t stick. But it did snow once. On inside days, everybody was inside, and there was not enough room to safely indulge in fantasy romps.

So I tried reading. It’s an easy out, and I’m as lazy as the next summer camp counselor. Each of the kids’ rooms had a good collection of children’s books, and they all had favorites that their group leaders read to them on a regular basis. Fine. We’ll read the book and use the story as a basis for our coloring.

Books are just as good as the adventures, right?

Had it not been for a little boy named Josh, I might thought so for the rest of my crafty career.

I don’t remember the book we were reading, but it had lovely pictures. One of them showed the main character and his family in a canoe. After we were done reading, I handed out the paper and markers, and the kids went at it.

About ten minutes later, as I cycled from table to table giving words of encouragement, I heard one of the boys crying softly. I went over to his table, assuming that someone had stolen the purple marker (always in great demand), or that the boy was just overtired or homesick; there is always some crying in a group of twenty or so preschoolers. What I found, though, changed forever how I think about creativity.

I squatted down near the crying boy, Josh, to see what was wrong. He was a five year old with super coloring skills, and had drawn a wonderful canoe. The shape was right (you could tell what it was, which is a trick sometimes), it was on some blue, wavy water, and a spiky-sun shone overhead. Perfect! What was the problem here?

I put a hand on Josh’s shoulder and asked him, “What’s wrong, Josh. You’re doing such a good job on your picture!”

“No I’m not!” he cried.

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“What do you mean?” I asked. “That’s a great canoe!” All children’s drawings are wonderful, but his actually looked pretty cool. The canoe was filled with lots of colorful stripes and shapes. It looked like a drawing from the Beetle’s animated “Yellow Submarine” movie. Kind of psychedelic, in a neat, pre-school sort of way.

“No it’s not!” he cried again. “It doesn’t look like the one in the book!” And with that, he crumpled up one of the nicest drawings I’d ever seen, and stuffed it in the trash.

That was the last day we used illustrated story books for coloring ideas.

Jumping While Sitting Down

Don’t get me wrong. I love illustrated children’s books. Long before my son, Daniel, was born my wife and I bought them. Heck, we had a collection before we were married. Everything by Graham Baese. The “Good Dog, Carl,” stories, which are mostly illustrations. Chris van Alsberg’s wonderful books. And many more. I enjoy them, and plan on sharing them with many children and adults over the years. But not when it’s time for coloring.

That simple statement by Josh, “It doesn’t look like the one in the book,” nearly broke my heart. How sad, that a five year old should somehow feel that he needs to measure up to a professional artist. I don’t think it’s learned behavior; I don’t think Josh’s parents somehow forced an unreasonable level of competitiveness down his throat. All of us, though, want to measure up. It’s part of human nature. And while there’s an appropriate time for being tested against standards, it’s definitely not when children are first learning to express their creativity. That leads to the helpless, inadequate feeling I sensed from Josh. And that’s just wrong.

So. There are plenty of stories without pictures. Or you can just not show the pictures to kids as you read the book – if you dare. As anyone who works with kids can tell you, they’ll rip you to shreds if you don’t show them the pictures. Even in a book with no pictures, they’ll demand to be shown the words… just to be sure.

Or, you can do what I did. Switch from active, running-about stories, to ones in which even the action is imagined. Sitting with the kids in a circle on the floor, I’d pretend to jump (swing the arms, stretch a bit, make a face, etc.), and they’d pretend, too. We used many of the same stories I’d relied on for outside adventures, just toned down a bit. It was still great rainy-day fun, and gave the kids’ imaginations that little push. When they participated in the story, they’d even go above and beyond my descriptions, and draw characters I had never mentioned, that they felt were implied or necessary to the narrative. That’s the best feeling – when a child goes beyond imagining the fantasy world you’ve created for them, and begins to participate in his or her own creation.

Once again, that would have been it. But (once again) a simple sentence changed my mind.

My Brain Doesn’t Work Like That

Twice a summer, we had an open-house picnic in the evening for the campers’ families. Basic cook-out foods were provided, and people were encouraged to bring and share side dishes, desserts, etc. The staff was required to attend, as this was our chance to meet the adults who shelled out for their kids’ summer fun. I mingled with the families, passed out stuff that kids had forgotten to take home, chatted with counselors I didn’t see often. It was fun, but weird to see so many adults in that setting.

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At one picnic I met Heather’s family. Heather was five, and introduced me to her dad as “Our art guy.” Dad and I shook hands, and he commented that Heather really enjoyed arts and crafts. She especially like our little adventures, both inside and outside, he said.

“It’s an easy way to give the kids some ideas for coloring,” I told him. “Good for stimulating the imagination centers of small brains.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “She seems to love it. Retells the stories at night to us. I only wish her mom or I were able to make up stories like that.”

“You can,” I told him. “It’s just… well… you think of characters, something for them to do and a place to do it. Maybe some weird props. Anything to hang a bit of narrative on. That’s all.”

He looked at me as if I was mad. “My brain doesn’t work like that,” he said.

I spent a few more minutes talking with him, and tried to goad him into making up a story on the spot. He was a nice guy, and seemed pretty smart. But, try as we might, all I’d get out of him was, “I don’t know.” Example:

Mr. Art Man: What kind of character would be a fun hero in a story?Heather’s Dad: I don’t know.Mr. Art Man: Just make something up.Heather’s Dad: OK. A bunny?Mr. Art Man: A bunny is good! Now. What does the bunny do?Heather’s Dad: Hop? I don’t know.Mr. Art Man: OK. Bunnies hop. Where does he hop to?Heather’s Dad: I don’t know.Mr. Art Man: Where could a bunny hop to?Heather’s Dad: I don’t know. A hole in the ground?Mr. Art Man: That’s a standard bunny haunt, sure. What does he do when he gets there?Heather’s Dad: I don’t know. Sleep?

So. After five minutes of prodding, we had a heroic bunny who hops to a hole and sleeps. Not the best fodder for creative growth. Now, there’s no such thing as a bad story, but there are better stories, when the purpose is to create and share a tapestry of imagination. How do you get past a sleepy bunny and into a story?

All You Need is a Hammer

And not even a real hammer, at that. An imaginary one. We’ll get to the hammer in a moment.

What I came to realize after talking with Heather’s dad (and dozens of other smart, willing adults) is that we have a creativity myth in this country. Many people believe that: A) You need to be an artist to be creative; B) Creativity is something you’re born with; and, C) You are either creative or not – there are no “kinda” creative people.

That is hooey. Nonsense. Untruthitude and falsity. Compartmentalization is a very big thing in America. You go to a math class and study math. You play at recess and study during study hall. You work at work and relax at home. And while this is OK in a general sense, it’s a killer in the long run. If you separate studying from fun, you will always associate learning with work; it’s hard, it’s stressful, it’s… well… work. If you can only ever relax at home, you’ll clench your way through three sets of teeth at the office. And we’ve done the same thing with creativity. If you weren’t “artistic,” if you didn’t have an immediate ability to create representational art, sing on key or write decent poetry off the top of your head, you weren’t a "creative" child. You therefore can’t be a creative adult. Because you never took a class. And

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you never had an instruction book on how to be creative. Because it’s inherent. And you didn’t get that gene.

Hooey. Hooey. Hooey.

I’m going to share the secret of creativity with you now. It’s simple to say, but requires practice, like any other skill. Ready? Read the following sentence three times before going on:

Creativity comes from forcing connections where none existed before.

Back up. Twice more. I saw you try to skip two and three. OK.

Well, that’s it. Especially when it comes to making up stories. A painter needs years of study just to learn how to make the proper use of his tools and supplies. As a daily user of language, you have the tools pretty well mastered. I’m not saying it’s easy to be a great novelist or poet; that takes years of practice, too. But if what you want to do is create some neat stories with your kids (or for yourself), you’ve got the tools. You’re just used to using them correctly.

And that’s where the hammer comes in. No, that wasn’t a typo at the end of the last paragraph. I said, “You’re just using them correctly.” Language is a set of symbols intended to convey an accurate representation of ideas. Stories are inaccurate, from a reality-based point of view.

Heather’s father is a good example of how our brains are trained by the language we use. We set up our own “word association” responses even when there’s no psychologist prompting us. I say, “Bunny.” Heather’s dad says, “Hop.” Accurate, logical, realistic – not much fun.

Now. Take your imaginary hammer. Take either the bunny or the action "hop" and smash it with the hammer.

Don’t Feel Guilty – I Made You Do It

If you are left with the image a dead, gory mess of bunny, or the three separate letters, “H,” “O” and “P,” you have just completed the first, most literal use of this method. Excellent. You have no story, but an active, unusual, violent image in your head. Now put the bunny and the word back together. You can use the other end of the hammer to do that.

Now. Imagine that the physical bunny or the word “hop” aren’t being actually smashed with a hammer, but that the hammer is separating some part of what makes the bunny a bunny from the bunny, or some part of what is required to hop from a hop.

“What is this moron talking about,” you ask. “This is too complicated already. Too philosophical. Too…”

Shut up. What makes a bunny a bunny? It’s an easy question. I’ll get you started.

Bunny: small, fuzzy mammal. Tends to jump. Has long ears and a cotton-ball tail. Likes to eat carrots. Lives in a burrow under the ground. Twitches its whiskers. Can be grey, brown, black, white or spotted.

Sound about right? Add some more if you want. Now:

Hop: Jumping up and down, usually with some forward motion.

Great. Now take the hammer and remove one of those parts from each of those definitions. Again, I’ll give you an example. Take the typical white, fluffy tail off the bunny. Ouch! More violence to our poor

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bunny friend. But you’re left with an animal who’s missing one of his most important, definitive parts. And “jump?” What if in jumping you only moved up, but not forward? That’s a jump without part of what makes it a jump.

So you’ve got a bunny with no tail who can only jump straight up. And you’ve just graduated to the next part of the program.

Weaving for Fun and Tension

Once you’ve got pieces broken up, you’ve created tension. Tension exists when you’ve disturbed “the normal.” It’s an essential part of stories. And the only way to resolve the tension is to answer the questions that immediately come to mind when you examine the disturbance.

Why does the bunny have no tail? Where did the tail go? How can he get it back if he can only jump straight up? Did he lose his tail because of this jumping malfunction? Will he get his tail and his regular jumping ability back? How? Why do bunnies like carrots so much?

Answering those questions, weaving the broken parts back together, is what storytelling is all about. Your end-state may be very similar to the boring, unbroken beginning. You’ll end up with a whole, standard, functioning bunny. But because he went through some adventures to get his tail back and regain his jumping skills, his final state is the end of an exciting quest. Not a static and tedious existence, bereft of adventure and floating in an existential sea of choking, Sargasso-like malaise and vague, creeping ennui.

Which is why TaleWeaver is called TaleWeaver. The process of weaving takes strips of material and binds them together in a stronger and more interesting way. You get patterns and pictures where before you had only monochromatic bits of cloth.

But What’s Up with All Those Poems?

Why are there poems on the backs of every card? Poetry breaks images and language down at their most basic levels. Why does poetry rhyme? Why does it have rhythm? The sound and pace of words doesn’t have anything to do with their intrinsic meaning. The words “flood” and “deluge” are close synonyms that don’t sound anything like each other. By involving the rhythm and rhyme of words, poets are forced to choose words based on something other than their pure definitions.

In order to do that, poets have to examine their subject from many angles. They also usually have a particular facet of a subject that interests them. The combination of looking at something from a weird angle (sound), and having to manipulate language in two ways at once (meaning and sound) gives poetry an intrinsic tension. Good poems are like very condensed stories in that way.

The poems that accompany every card’s title are meant to provide a lever to help you break down the subject and begin creating tension. Please don’t take the subject matter of the poems as a limitation on what can be done with that subject. For example, the poem on the card for “Duchess” describes a good, kind woman. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have an evil duchess in your story. See “Chapter 4. TaleWeaving Tips” for more details on how to use the cards in different ways.

Poetry also calls attention to the potential magic and importance of everyday subjects. Stories do this, too. But poems are like microscopes, helping you see a small detail of something in a new way. Read the

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poems, if you want. You don’t have to. But I hope you like reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

And You Lived Happily Ever After

Spend some time working with the cards. Make notes of what works. If you’re doing this with children and they’re coloring pictures of the stories, keep the notes and the pictures together. Draw some pictures yourself. Don’t be judgmental of your own coloring; remember Josh – and don’t think you need to do anything but have fun. Fun is the single most important word in storytelling.

Why do we feel the need to tell and hear stories? Our minds are complex places. Stories provide paths through the tangle. And the more you work with your stories – with or without the TaleWeaver cards – the more you will find yourself breaking apart and reassembling creative pieces in other areas of your life.

Storytelling is magic. You start with nothing more than the air in your lungs and a spark in your mind. You sit. You speak. And children are taken to another place. A place where images are born and imagination grows. A place where they discover new roads to old, familiar places. And marvelous new places along old, worn-out roads.

If you feel as if you need permission, here – I give it. You are now a licensed TaleWeaver. You are a story teller. A breaker of the mundane into pieces that can be repuzzled into the extraordinary.

We’ll be quiet.

We promise.

Just one more.

Then we’ll go to sleep.

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Chapter 2. Meet the TaleWeaver Deck

These are not rules. If you and the people with whom you are sharing stories are having fun and exercising your creative functions – you win. If you are feeling challenged and a little frustrated – you win. If you eventually don’t need the cards and launch into an epic series of tales that become a private mythology known only to your circle of tellers and listeners – gosh, you really win more than I could ever hope for.

Simply put, the TaleWeaver Deck is a set of four suits of cards (and four Jesters). Each card has a title and an accompanying poem. The titles of the cards are the seeds from which you can grow stories. The poems are… well… a little bit of fertilizer. If you like, you can read the “Chapter 1. Motive, History and Introduction,” for more details about the “why” of the poems. The four suits are:

Eyes – characters Hands – props Winds – events Lands – settings

The four Jesters are just weird, out-of-control makers of mischief and Sons of Chaos.

How to Weave a Tale

Every story ever written requires two ingredients; the pieces and the fit. The TaleWeaver deck provides you with a few possible pieces and a few descriptions. How they fit together is up to you. What follows are some ideas on how to start fitting pieces together into stories.

The basics of any TaleWeaver session involve pulling a bunch of cards from the deck, reading the titles and poems (or skipping the poetry once you’re tired of it), and fitting them together into a story.

That’s it. Which is sort of like saying, “All that’s required to win a championship football game is to score more points than the other team.” Telling stories is hard work. Fun and rewarding, but not easy. Which you should take to heart from the beginning; this is not a game of Crazy Eights or Go Fish. This is a serious creative learning session disguised as entertainment.

If you are doing this with children, let them help as much as possible. I guarantee you’ll have more fun and hear some of the craziest stuff ever. Kids are much better at loosening the ties of reality; they haven’t tied them up as tight as we have yet.

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Chapter 3. TaleWeaver “Game” Types

I call them “games” because it sounds more fun that way, and because you use cards. There are no rules. And the first rule is don’t ever think that the rules matter more than you having fun and getting the most out of a session. After this chapter, there’s a “Fundamentals of TaleWeaving” section that gives suggestions that work in any type of session; in fact, most of the “Fundamentals” work pretty well for story telling even outside the TaleWeaving environment. They even work in other creative situations, too.

The Quest: Pick cards until you come to an “Eye” (a character). This is your hero. Pick another card. This is the goal of the quest – to find a “Hand” (prop), discover a “Land” (environment), survive a “Wind” (event) or link up with another “Eye.” Keep those two cards face-up, and separate them by about a foot or so. Now pick 3-5 other cards and lay them out face-down on the table between the hero and the goal. Talk a bit about why the hero wants to make it to the goal. Come up with at least one (but ideally more) reasons why the goal is important to her. Now turn up the first face-down card. This is the first obstacle the hero encounters on the way to the goal. How does this card “block” the hero? What could this person/place/object/event do to keep the hero from the goal? And then, how does the hero overcome the obstacle? If you’d like, pick another random card – and let that card help the hero triumph over the obstacle. When all the obstacles have been overcome – your hero is at the goal!

Tip: If you come up with interesting heroes/villains, make a note of them and use them in future tales. The more you build up a history of elements, the more special they will become and the easier it will be to work them into future tales.

Triumph: Pick two “Eyes.” One is your hero, one is the villain. Pick another card. This is what the villain wants to ruin/kill/have for himself. Deal out at least 3 face-down cards. These are the environments or people that will influence the battle. Make sure that the battle is not one-sided; if the hero always wins, his victory is not as rewarding. As in “The Quest,” if you’d like to pick additional cards with which to “arm” the hero or villain, go right ahead.

Tip: An additional victory condition can be the “winning over” of the villain rather than his defeat. Straight defeat is fun, but sometimes converting the villain over to the good-guy’s side will provide for future stories of conflict (the villain strays from the path of right), or will give you a darker, more complex hero for later stories.

Location/Event: This is a story about a place or happening that’s fun/scary/educational/mysterious/ hilarious to visit. Pick a mood before you begin. Find a “Land” card. That’s your location, or a “Wind” for an event. Now keep drawing cards, and every time you come to an “Eye,” describe how that character reacts to the location/event. After four or five folks go through the process, have the last one discover a secret about the place that explains its charm/horror/etc. Use a “Hand” (prop) if you’d like as part of the crux at the center of the mystery.

Tip: These can be very funny stories. Children love to hear about how different characters react to the same weird circumstance, especially if all the participants start out behaving differently, but end up falling for the same gag or being ejected in a humorous way.

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Puzzle: A little harder tale to weave. Puzzle stories frequently involve hidden connections between apparently unrelated people, places or events. If you’re weaving a tale interactively, puzzle stories are even harder. If you’re making one up ahead of time for a later bedtime story, go for it. Find an “Eye” for a hero. Pick any other card as his goal. Now pick three random cards and decide how they fit together to provide a key to the goal. Make a note of how they finally fit together. When you tell the story, only reveal a little bit of the “solution” as each part is discovered by the hero

Tip: Puzzle stories require planning. If you can’t seem to fit your three chosen cards into a puzzle – tough it out! I told you it wouldn’t be easy. Rapunzel let people climb her hair, for Pete’s sake. Whichever Grimm brother came up with that one was clearly thinking outside the box.

Brought Low/Raised Up: Pick your hero. Have her burdened by either a place (“Land”), one or more people (“Eyes”), or a number of things (“Hands”). Whatever the burden, make sure that other characters either mock, look down on or generally disparage the hero. If you’re in the mood for romance, have another “Eye” come along and begin to help the hero out of her dilemma, and guide them toward a relationship. If you want the hero to persevere on her own, have her discover an object (“Hand”) or experience an event (“Wind”) and thereby gain power of what kept her down.

Tip: It can be funny if the characters who originally mocked the hero are brought low themselves at the end, but be careful. You risk tarnishing the hero if she is too involved in turn-about cruelty.

Chase: A fun, action-oriented motif. Find your hero. Find two “Lands.” Your hero needs to get from the first to the second. But wait! Will she make it before the chaser (another “Eye”) catches up to her? Pick other (any suit) cards. The hero must run “around” these obstacles as she is chased. Do the obstacles hinder her more or less than the chaser? Can she use them to help elude her pursuer? What is the prize when she reaches the goal? Pick another “Hand” if you’d like.

Tip: Turn the tables once you get your hero “home” and have her chase the pursuer, empowered by the earlier action and the item (“Hand”) that she found at her goal.

Redemption: This time you start with a villainous “Eye.” Pick a “Land,” and make him lord of that place in a bad way. Give him one or more objects (“Hands”) with which he can control the environment. Now find three other characters (“Eyes”). Show how they fit into the “Land,” and how the villain is cruel to them. Now pick three events (“Winds”). Each of these events should present our villain with a nearly catastrophic or almost deadly challenge. Show how each of the three other characters, despite having been treated badly by the villain, help him survive these events. In the end, the villain will realize his error and befriend the others, perhaps even sharing control of the “Land” or “Hands” of which he was sole master.

Tip: The journey of redemption can be guided by a single character, who shows the villain the error of his ways. Or the villain can experience the devastating events (“Winds”) alone, and realize that he needs the help of others, and see the value of his formerly mistreated underlings. This type of tale is rich in moral possibilities.

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Capture and Escape: Can be kind of creepy. Good for low-stress spooky stories. Pick your hero (“Eye”). Pick your villain. Your villain captures your hero (using a “Hand” if you like) and takes him to a “Land.” Now – either various different characters (“Eyes”) can try to help the hero escape, or the hero can find various different props (“Hands”) within his prison (not literal – he could be held on top of a boulder, guarded by… you decide) and use them to escape. Or the props can be used to fool the villain into eventually entering the prison and changing places with the hero. Either way, when it’s time to escape, choose a “Wind” (event) card and make that the trigger or final step of the escape.

Tip: This is a good story type for kids to help with. How would you use a staff to get out of a theater? How would winter affect your chances of escaping a castle by boat? Kids are great at making up ways to manipulate reality towards an end. If their methods are impossible – so much the better.

Growing Up: Can be funny. Can also be combined with other story motifs. Pick a hero (“Eye”) and make him young. Pick at least three random cards, any type. As you turn them over, describe how the youth and inexperience of your hero makes him react in an inappropriate or immature way to these people/places/ things/events. Have him be distraught or embarrassed by his failure. Now pick a mentor (“Eye”) who will teach the hero a more mature or effective way to deal with these things. Pick one or more random cards and have the hero and his mentor share the experience(s), with the hero becoming more accomplished each time. In the end, pick one more card. This one the mentor can’t deal with, and the hero needs to come to his aid.

Tip: Give the mentor an object (“Hand”) that seems to always help (maybe it’s magic) during the process of discovery or adventure. Have him lose it before the last challenge, and have the hero find it and use it to help out the mentor. Or have the hero discover that the object isn’t special or magic; that the magic or knowledge is in himself.

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Chapter 4. TaleWeaver Strategies

The Answer is the Questions.

In Chapter 1 (or was it Chapter 3?) we said that every story has two ingredients; the pieces and the fit. Chapter 3 is mostly about how to put the pieces down on the board. This chapter is about the fit. And the way to make the characters, props, places and events fit is to ask questions. Every time you ask a question, you provide yourself with the opportunity to answer it. How you answer – that’s the story.

The Best Two Questions in the World

Why?How?

When telling a story, all other questions can be answered linearly, or by (in most cases) pulling out more cards of the appropriate suit.

Need to know “What?” Pick a “Hand.”Need to know “Who?” Pick an “Eye.”Need to know “Where?” Pick a “Land.”

But “Why?” and “How?” require you to think. Here’s an example. Suppose you’re doing a “Quest” story with (who?) the Minstrel as the hero. His destination (where?) is the Forest. Why does he want to get back to the forest? This is your chance to use that hammer from Chapter 1 and break apart "Forest" and "Minstrel," and find a way to mix their pieces up as you put them back together.

Let’s break apart the Minstrel first. What comes to mind? Read the poem. Think a bit. Here we go.

Minstrel: makes music, travels, sings, carries an instrument (harp, guitar, flute, harmonica, electronic keyboard, mandolin, accordian, violin, tuba, xylophone, etc.), tries to make money by playing concerts, carries stories with him, usually friendly, kind of a loner, good story teller himself.

And now, the Forest.

Forest: Woods, trees, animals, paths, bushes, fruit, berries, logs, bogs, frogs, brambles, owls, bears. Can be scary if big creatures hide there. Can be a nice place to hide for yourself.

Now start matching individual parts, until something rings a bell. Let’s take the first word from each list; “music” and “woods.” OK. How can they be related? Remember – use the hammer! Force it! You can always find a relationship, even between the two most seemingly diverse subjects. The wind in the trees makes music sometimes. And some instruments are made out of wood. What if the Minstrel needed to get to this special forest because the magic trees that sing in the wind can be used to make a wonderful harp or other instrument?

See. You’ve now got a “why” for this story; why does the Minstrel want to get to the Forest? To get the magic wood to make a great harp. All the rest of the story can be “how.” Use the objects (“Hands”) and other people to make obstacles and tools for the Minstrel to overcome. Break them apart, too, to see how their pieces might fit to make a “how,” until your hero has accomplished his “why.”

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The Harder the Better: An example

One of the strengths of TaleWeaver is that it is random. Pure linear thinking leads to non-fiction (history) or boring fiction (Star Wars Episode 1). Remember Heather’s dad from Chapter 1? A story of a bunny who hops into his hole and falls asleep is plausible, but not much fun. Tragically (from the point of view of someone who wants to learn how to tell stories), our culture mostly teaches linear thinking.

There is always a link. Always. Always. Usually many. The more you force yourself to think of links, the more likely you’ll come up with an unusual and entertaining “why” or “how” for your tale.

Additional indented weirdness exercize: take two words that you think are fundamentally unrelated. Go to your favorite Internet search engine (I prefer www.google.com). Type in the two words, each preceeded by a "plus" sign (+). That forces the engine to find a page that must have both of the words. I will bet it takes you a long time to find a pair of words that gets no match. I recently tried "+harpsichord +"peewee herman" and came up with a match. This just proves the above point that there is always a link between everything. Welcome to synchronicity.

As an exercise for this chapter, I've picked two incredibly non-related, non-traditional “Eyes” as the hero and villain for a “Triumph” style story. The hero is the “General” and the villain is the “Baby.”

Ain't that a pisser? A hero general is OK. Sure. But a baby as the villain? Let’s see what happens when we get out that hammer again.

General: Leads troops into battle. A good tactician. Strong, fierce, somewhat solitary, good motivational speaker, gives orders, reports to a king or other ruler, can probably fight pretty well on his own, doesn’t like being talked back to, wears a uniform, carries a sword.

Baby: Small, innocent, harmless. Cries, wets, laughs, nurses, likes bright, shiny mobiles. Requires constant attention. Sleeps a lot. Burps. Spits up. Crawls, pulls on things, rolls, gets food on face.

So how could a baby thwart or challenge a general? Well, in a “Triumph” story, the hero and villain both strive for control of the same thing. Let’s pick another card as the object of their struggle: a “Spyglass.”

Spyglass: Used to see things far away. Made of metal and glass, or leather and glass.

The general clearly needs his spyglass to better see and understand the battlefield during conflict. But the baby has it. Why? Babies like shiny things. Baby has found the spyglass and likes to play with it.

What we have here is a non-traditional or unintentional villain. You could make the baby a horrible, monstrous, bug-eyed, four-armed, poison spitting alien baby from the Pits of Pandemonium and have him duke it out in a traditional battle with the general. That could be fun, too (and has the added benefit of obvious merchandising possibilities). But non-traditional roles also make for good story fodder. Maybe the baby doesn’t do anything at all. Maybe the baby’s nurse, mother, father, baby-sitter, sister, etc. all keep giving the spyglass back to the baby because it’s the only thing that keeps baby quiet. And the general needs the spyglass by tomorrow morning for a battle. How does this general, who is used to being obeyed, interact with a baby, who can’t understand his commands? What does the general do to get the spyglass back? Let’s pick one more card and see how it fits in: Autumn.

Autumn: Cooler, leaves changing color and falling, allergies, breezes blowing, harvest time, pumpkins, cider, hay-rides, longer nights/shorter days, back to school time.

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“Well,” thinks the general. “The baby wants something colorful. I’ll tie a bunch of red and orange leaves in a bunch, slip them in the crib and take the spyglass while he’s distracted with the leaves.” He does this, and almost makes it out of the room, but the leaves make the baby sneeze, and that brings the nurse from down the hall. Quickly, the general puts the spyglass back and scrambles out the window.

Methods of Madness

I know. It’s hard. It’s work. But it’s fun and I promise it gets easier. Remember – you have permission to break up the subjects of your story in any way you want. Here are some ways of doing that.

Hyperbole: A hyperbole is an exaggeration; usually a huge, enormous, unbelievably unbelievable exaggeration. Stretching the common characteristics of a subject to an extreme can be entertaining. What describes a “Wagon?” It’s faster than walking and carries things. OK. How about a wagon that can go incredibly fast and carry an unlimited amount of stuff? That could be a fun part of a story.

Litotes: This is a word you should know, if only because nobody else does. I guarantee you know nobody who knows what litotes is. It’s the opposite of hyperbole. The singular and plural are both spelled “litotes,” and Webster defines it as: understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary (as in "not a bad singer" or "not unhappy"). Often used as an ironic understatement, e.g. “Spilling red wine all over the host’s white rug didn’t make him very popular at the party.” As a narrative device, though, litotes can be a deliberate understatement of a subject’s characteristic. What if the wagon from the example above could not move at all? Or what if anything you put into it immediately jumped out? Not much of a wagon, eh? But when characters interact with an object/place/person/event that has the opposite characteristic of what they’re expecting, that can lead to interesting or funny tension.

Personification: Take any non-character (any “Hand,” “Land” or “Wind”) and make it into a character. Embody the characteristics of that thing into a person. A living tower the strides across the land, the Lord of Winter, a sword that fences on its own, the Mountain King, a fireplace that breathes smoke, etc.

Combination: Take any two of the same suit and combine them into one. The duke who is a cook. The staff that is a bow. The mountain that is a market. The “how” of merging two dissimilar subjects can be a major part of any story.

Repetition: Many great stories take essentially the same situation and repeat it with slight changes to make a point. “The Three Pigs,” “A Christmas Carol,” “Robin Hood,” – they all have very similar, repetitive scenes. These repetitions help emphasize the key characteristics of a hero or situation.

Paradox: The cat chases the dog. The hot, hot winter. A staff made of rubber. Similar to litotes, but rather than an understatement, a complete opposite. Can be used with two subjects to good effect; the cook that commanded the duke; a giant that lives in a thimble; the market that leads to a road; the silly teacher and the serious student.

Comparison: How do two subjects compare when applied to the same task? How would a guard compare to a spy when trying to climb a mountain? How would a boat compare to a horn, if you had to try using both/either to cover a naked character? How would a parade in a cellar compare to one in a kitchen?

Contrast: The cheap alternative to comparison. Jack Sprat and his wife. Goofus and Gallant. Joe Cool and Charlie Brown. Playing off the obvious differences of two characters/objects/places/events can point out interesting story possibilities.

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Chapter 5. Ways to Play

All Together Now

If you read Chapter 1, then you’ll know that one good reason to play TaleWeaver is to create stories that children can use as jumping off points for coloring and drawing. If you’re doing that, or getting help from the kids just because they enjoy it, you’re playing interactively. Which is a hoot. It’s not particularly how professional writers put together stories. But then again, they tend to smoke too much, drink lots of cheap coffee and shout at their editors. None of which is (hopefully) part of your personal story time.

Interactive TaleWeaving can be done in a round-robin fashion with everyone getting a turn. Or you can have one chief narrator (a teacher, parent, older sibling, ibex, etc.) who takes suggestions from the peanut gallery. Either way, make sure everyone who wants to participate gets a turn.

Creating stories in a group – whether its all grown-ups, all kids, or a mix – is fun and exciting, but has its own challenges. You have to be careful not to tromp on someone else’s ideas and suggestions. Here are a few suggestions for making interactive sessions fun and workable.

Notes for later. If you come up with a great story idea, but it doesn’t work with the one being drummed up by the group, jot down a note and use it later. There’s no rule that says you need to use every good idea right away. Come to think of it, always take notes. If you need a fun, quick story with a different group and don’t have time to TaleWeave, just whip out an “oldie.”

Egg timer. Some people (this author included) have big, fat mouths that never shut. That’s not necessarily bad (Seriously. It's not. Lots of people like me. They do. No, my dad didn't pay them just to say that. Shut up. No, you shut up. Whoops. Sorry. Apparently some therapy has wandered into the text). But my big mouth sometimes means that other people don’t get a turn. And that’s not good. Use an egg timer, a stopwatch, etc. so that everyone gets a chance.

Mulligans. In golf (I hear), if you botch your first drive off the first tee, you can have what we as kids called a “do-over,” but which golfers call a “mulligan.” What a great thing. When adults are coming up with stories on their own, I highly encourage the “forcing it” method. You’ll never get more creative if you always wait for pairs of subjects that immediately and easily line up in your brain. But kids have softer and more brittle egos. If a child is having a real hard time coming up with an idea for a card, let her have another. If, after two or three, she’s still stuck, have her hold onto those cards and think about them while you move on. That way she’ll feel like she can still participate later. If there’s time next time around, let her take two turns in a row.

You Must Be "This Tall" to Be Wrong: If it’s all adults playing, feel free to be a bit critical if someone pulls out an easy, less-than-best-effort chunk of tale. If you and your friends (like me and mine) interact via playful mocking, have at it. Not with little ones. My rule of thumb: if they can’t drive, they’re always right. Again – if you have a “better” idea, write it down. But, hey, teacher – leave them kids alone.

Random vs. Planned ‘Em. Random group playing can be more fun for an all grown-up group. You don’t get to see your card before it’s your turn. You have a certain amount of time to come up with something. For kids, try letting them all take a card or two at the beginning. Then start the story yourself, put some background into it, and give the kids a few minutes to think about their cards.

Story Maps: If you want to TaleWeave often, try taking a large piece of cardboard or oak-tag and drawing card-sized rectangles across it. Label each as “hero,” “villain,” “home,” “magic items,” etc. Tell the players what the order will be, and which “blank” they’ll be responsible for. Again, this can help

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people begin to stretch strengthen the part of their mind they’ll need to make a connection with their card.

Me and My Shadow

Maybe you’re making up bedtime stories for your kids, or lunch time stories for your kindergarten class. Or working on a story for your creative writing master’s thesis. Whatever – TaleWeaver is a great way to exercise and expand your creative functions on your own.

Most of what works in groups will work when you’re alone. But, in some ways, you have more freedom – and more responsibility – when you’re crafting a story on your own. You can’t rely on the creativity (or lack thereof) of other group members. You need to push yourself. And that’s not easy. Here are a few tips on ways to get the most out of solo TaleWeaving sessions.

Value the Process. This is not a contest. This is not a job. Quit looking at the clock. Quit throwing away note paper with “bad” ideas. Stop judging your stories. TaleWeaving is more about learning how to be creative than about coming up with great new stories every night. Learning is an action verb that happens over time. Not at once. You don’t cross some line and suddenly know everything there is to know. There is no goal weight, no perfect score, no trophy. If you’re truly smart, you’ll never stop learning. And creating stories is a challenging, fun way to learn the creative process. Be a friend to yourself. You wouldn’t treat a friend to the same levels of criticism that you do yourself, would you? And stop poking your little brother. And don't eat all the raisins.

Re-Re-Re. The hardest lesson I ever learned in writing is that my own words are not golden drops of greatness dancing unbidden from my pen. Just because you write something down doesn’t mean it’s holy, precious or valuable. It just means you cared enough to take notes. Does this contradict what I just said above about having fun? Not at all. But – and this is a good thing to remember in almost every area of your life – your first idea is almost never your best one. If you want a truly great TaleWeaving experience some time, take a tale you’ve just finished and replace one card with a new, random one. Make the new one fit. Do that again. Keep doing it until you’ve replaced every original card with new ones. Is it the same story? Of course not. But what does the final story have in common with the original? Hoooo…. Kind of gives me a creepy shiver just thinking about it. All different subjects, but there will be similarities. How funky. I know for a fact that this is exactly how they write every single "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" script.

But Not While Driving. Do your TaleWeaving in different environments. Our brains are part of our bodies. When you’re at the kitchen table, your brain is thinking “Cap’n Crunch.” In your La-Z-Boy, it’s thinking “Cheers reruns.” That’s OK. And your creative functions will be tweaked differently in different places. Go to the library for awhile sometime and write in a cubby. TaleWeave in the car (not while driving). Go down in the basement or up in the attic (kids, get your parents’ permission). In a boat, on a plane, at the coffee shop. You get it. Try it. You’ll be surprised at the difference it makes. When you join the "Mile Hile" club of TaleWeavers give me a call and I'll send you $5.

Be a Hunter, Not a Waiter. You are the TaleWeaver. The story comes out of you. Treat the process like a hunt or a sport. You will find the connections you need to make a good story. You will break apart the meanings of subjects until they yield golden fruit. You are in charge. Many people feel like they have to wait for the creativity fairy to zots them with a wand or something. Or wait for “the right moment,” or for the muse to descend. Bosh and hogwaller. It’s your brain. Show it who’s boss. Go ahead… spank your cerabellum. Man-handle your medulla. Thrash your… sorry. My bad.

Share but Don’t Compare. Stories are meant to be shared. Please, please, please find someone you trust who can help you on this journey. Or, even better, someone who wants to go there, too. But don’t make it a competition – unless you can both have more fun that way. And especially don’t ever, ever, ever put down someone else’s work. Constructive criticism can be very helpful – if it’s been asked for. But careless scorn can kill forever a newly awakening creative spirit. There are few crimes more heinous.

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Chapter Eggplant

Other possible names for this chapter were, “Chapter Desmond,” “Chapter Spelunking,” “Chapter Nasal Fortitude,” “Chapter Corky,” “Chapter Ahoy!” and “Chapter Non-Gorilla.”

I just wanted to take a moment to say, “Thanks” for participating in the TaleWeaving story. If you have some fun and create some neat stories, that’s great. If some of the TaleWeaving principles help you be more creative in other parts of your life, that’s even better.

Please feel free to share TaleWeaver with friends and family. If you would like to share comments on TaleWeaver, stories you have created, questions you have, ideas for future cards, etc., please feel free to email them to:

andyhavens@sanestorm.com

If you are a slave to the capitalist notion that the only way to reward effort is through economic remuneration, mention this fact in your email and I will give you an address to which you can send me canvas sacks filled with filthy lucre. Feel free to cross out "Chapter Eggplant" and replace it with "Chapter Shameless Huckstering."

Good luck, God bless, and happy weaving.

- A

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